I finally got to go last weekend and had a blast. Only had one day in the park because we were technically in Orlando for the Ado concert (which was also very fun).
We went to Japan last summer so I had already been to a SNW but they did not have DK when we went so it was really cool to see that here. Those early DK Country games were huge for me as a kid so walking past the airplane and seeing all that stuff come to life was really cool. Maybe I am crazy but I thought the AR worked better for the Orlando MK ride than the Japan one. Maybe I was just better at looking at it since I knew how it worked this time or something.
DK ride was very cool for what it was. Same for MK. Yoshi is nice for a rest, see some cute stuff, and get a nice view of the park. All really good for kids. Hoping whatever we get as far as a Nintendo expansion ends up being a little bit of a "bigger" ride. Something a little more exciting or something. Again not really looking for something aimed specifically for adults, but duh, but something with just a LITTLE bit more oomf would really make the Nintendo stuff top tier.
Dragons land was really beautiful. We got about 10 minutes into the dragon show and the show stopped and we all got evacd out. Bummer. But we got an express pass out of it. The 10 minutes we saw of the show was incredible and I was bummed we never had time to come back and try and see the rest of it at some point. We were in line for dragon racer and it got shut down. Bad luck in the dragons land.
But it looks really cool and all the merch is awesome and the mac n cheese cone is a game changer for me.
I enjoyed the Wizarding World area. The show was really cool but I am a sucker for magic and puppets/animatronics. The city section is really pretty and feels like its captured the magic of the Diagon Alley land. Very impressive.
I enjoyed the ministry ride. Maybe two parts of this ride broke my brain and had me trying to figure out how in the hell they did it. Bummer about the projected faces though. That looked pretty rough.
The Ministry queue was beautiful, but was the worst queue experience I had at Epic. The wait in single riders was really long, which is fair, but all of the single rider queue after the big reveal is just a white hallway and it was packed with dumb teenagers (no offense) so the wait felt a lot longer than it was maybe.
Monsters land was pretty much exactly what I wanted it to be. Das Stakhouse nearly gave me the same feeling that Monsters Cafe did, even if it is trying to be more "serious" and The Burning Blade Tavern was excellent vibes, excellent drinks, all of it. This was the only land I bought a good bit of merch from (other than the DK banana float thing because obviously I needed that) but this place really just knocks it out of the park with just about everything. I could see myself just parking in this land for several hours taking it all in.
Monsters Unchained was my favorite ride in the park. Maybe favorite ride ever, but that is tough. I thought ministry might end up being the "better" ride to me, and maybe I found it more impressive, but there are about 2 things in the ministry ride that bring it down for me. Monsters Unchained, I don't see anything that brings it down. Maybe it is not as impressive technically, but damn its just pretty much perfect. I expected to really like the ride being a huge monsters fan, but I did not expect the ride to make me cry a little- which it did.
Just. Damn.
This land just needs one more ride, or maybe a show or something and it'll be hard for anything else anywhere to top it IMO.
I rode the wolfman ride. About as disappointing as I was afraid it would be. Bummer.
Celestial Park is beautiful and ties the whole thing together really well. The light and music show at park close is perfect. Did not have time to ride Stardust, which is the only thing on the trip that I really regretted, but I did have time to catch dinner at Pizza Moon and that was really the cherry on top of a great day for me. I love that place. I don't really know what you would call that specific aesthetic or whatever, but it was all perfect to me.
Now that I have a day at Epic under my belt, I can't wait to come back and do stuff I missed, slow down and look at stuff I did not have time to take in properly, and eat more of the best theme park food I think I have had in America. (Tokyo DisneySea is just top of the top in that department)
Really enjoyed me trip. Cannot wait to come back.
Next stop for me is HHN